Pre-Columbian, Peru, Paracas culture, ca. 800 to 100 BCE. A burnished blackware vessel with a ring of incised, abstract geometric symbols around and below the exterior rim. Raised up from one side of the rim is a flat, rectangular face with three-dimensional bulging eyes, a thin, pointed nose, and pursed, beak-like lips. A stepped design below the eyes and nose calls to mind the shape of Andean pyramids. Much of what we know of the Paracas culture came from excavations, beginning in the 1920s, of shaft tombs containing multiple burials, with associated pottery and textiles. Their iconography is linear and stylistic, based on formal, repeated figures that often, like this one, combine zoomorphic and anthropomorphic features. Motifs on their ceramics mirror those on the textiles that they used to wrap their dead. Size: 9" W x 3.5" H (22.9 cm x 8.9 cm)

Provenance: private New York, USA collection; ex Orlando, Florida, USA collection

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#128903

Repaired from six or seven large pieces. Repairs are well done and very difficult to see.